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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25726714">Two Ends of a Cord</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofthestars/pseuds/houseofthestars'>houseofthestars</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Two Lockets [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dirty Talk, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Phone Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), The Porn Is the Plot, Voice Kink, but magic, guided masturbation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:01:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,219</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25726714</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofthestars/pseuds/houseofthestars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“And I will be able to hear you as well?” Ferdinand gestures to the locket in Hubert’s own hand, the twin to his in every way but in silver rather than gold.</p><p>“Only when I choose to make it so. I shan’t distract you with my everyday comings and goings. But if you have a need for me, you have only to open the locket and ask.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Two Lockets [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>314</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Two Ends of a Cord</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s a delightfully elegant design, close up. Ferdinand had never made much use of what little magical skill he had, but his schooling lets him pick out the intermingled sigils of <em>thunder</em> and <em>warp</em>, finely engraved on the face of the locket Hubert has just given him. Another set of lines looks familiar but is more difficult to discern, until he realises it is <em>silence</em>, but inverted, reversed.</p><p>“Quite ingenious,” he marvels, holding the thing up to the light. Its thin golden chain swings at his wrist. “And has this invention been tested at the distance we are attempting? I know a warp spell alone has its limits.”</p><p>“We have not tested the connection internationally, but the theoretical base is solid,” Hubert assures him. “I have every confidence it will work while you are in Dagda, so long as you adhere to its proper operation.”</p><p>The nerve of the man! “I dare say I can manage opening and closing a locket, Hubert. Do you really think so little of me?”</p><p>“I only wish to stress its limitations,” Hubert says, with a touch of wholly unfair weariness. “So long as the locket is around your neck, it will hear what comes from your mouth and what reaches your ears, and thus so will I. I have also included a safety feature that should alert me if you find yourself experiencing an undue amount of stress or pain, but are unable to talk. The locket is attuned to your physicality; its limits are your own. For instance, do not assume that just because you are in the same room as a discussion that we will be privy to it. You will need to move close enough for yourself to hear. ”</p><p>“And I will be able to hear you as well?” Ferdinand gestures to the locket in Hubert’s own hand, the twin to his in every way but in silver rather than gold.</p><p>“Only when I choose to make it so. I shan’t distract you with my everyday comings and goings. But if you have a need for me, you have only to open the locket and ask.”</p><p>“A marvellous invention, indeed! One cannot help but consider its wider application. Direction in battle, perhaps, or long distance conversation between loved ones—“</p><p>“But for now, let us focus on the talks in Dagda, hmm?” Hubert cuts in smoothly. “Being able to plan our strategies together in real time will prove quite invaluable. We can consider its wider uses if it proves successful in this one.”</p><p>—</p><p>Fódlan, Brigid and Dagda have come together in peace for the first time in living memory, ahead of Brigid’s independence. In Dagda’s capital, Fer Benn, Petra greets Ferdinand with all the royal dignity that sings in her veins, and then catches him with arms around his waist and swings him around for joy. Merely by being here as guests, they are making history.</p><p>Discussions with Dagda’s cabinet are involved and lengthy. Old wounds, while beginning to heal, must be cared for delicately. The locket becomes an ever-present weight against Ferdinand’s sternum. It’s easy enough to open and close, even underneath his attire, and including it in the negotiations is an easy habit to form. In the tumult of debate it is somewhat reassuring to know that there is another pair of dispassionate ears hearing every word that Ferdinand himself encounters.</p><p>“It seems to be working well,” Hubert says, during one evening debrief. He rarely speaks to Ferdinand in the midst of negotiation, preferring to strategise at the end of each day. “You’re having no trouble with it?”</p><p>“Not at all,” Ferdinand says to his empty room, feeling the locket stick slightly to his skin, blood warm. “It is as if it is nothing but a trinket.”</p><p>—</p><p>The first time happens almost by accident. Perhaps Ferdinand has had some wine tonight, loosening his tongue somewhat; perhaps the warm air and scattered stars he can see from his balcony have put him in some sort of mood. Whatever it is, it’s mostly without thought that Ferdinand thumbs the button on the locket through his shirt and feels it snap open, his other hand still rolling the stem of his wine glass between thumb and fingers. And it is on an impulse that he cannot explain that he murmurs, “Are you there?”</p><p>There’s no response at first, an indifferent silence, and Ferdinand is about to snap the locket shut again when he hears a muffled intake of breath. And then, “Ferdinand?”</p><p>Ferdinand blinks in the Dagdan twilight, the thrum of cicadas below him. “Oh. Hubert. I, ah, did not actually expect you to answer.”</p><p>“You did not expect me to answer the communications device I entrusted to you specifically for this purpose? That you deliberately used to contact me?” There’s something slightly blunted about Hubert’s words that Ferdinand cannot place.</p><p>“Well. I suppose I expected you might only be listening during the talks.”</p><p>“The device is for your safety as well as for the talks. It would be remiss of me to leave you unattended.”</p><p>It’s somnolence, Ferdinand realises. He so rarely hears it from Hubert, even when they have been burning the midnight oil going through tedious piles of old legislation to find precedents for new proposals, or debating the ordeals and rewards of some potential new policy long after everyone else has exhausted the topic.</p><p>“Did I wake you up?” Ferdinand says, in wonder.</p><p>“You forget Enbarr sets its clocks two hours later than Fer Benn.”</p><p>“I did not forget, I just… I can’t remember the last time you retired earlier than myself. Are you quite well?”</p><p>There’s a puffed breath of amusement. It feels as if it should tickle the shells of Ferdinand’s ears, disturb the fine hair at his temples, but there’s nothing. “Perhaps it is that I currently find myself with fewer distractions in my day to day work.”</p><p>Ferdinand bristles on the balcony, frowning though there are no witnesses. “Are you implying I am the only thing that keeps you from your bed? It is you, if you recall, who insisted on staying awake for forty-eight hours ahead of Edelgard’s victory parade so that you almost fainted during the real thing, and I certainly had nothing to do with that.”</p><p>“Do you actually need my assistance, Prime Minister, or did you just wake me up to bicker?”</p><p>“Ah. I apologise. I suppose I was just curious.”</p><p>“Curious?”</p><p>“To see if you were still listening. It’s always rather odd hearing you speak like this, you know. It is as if you are in no direction at all. Is it the same for you?”</p><p>Not to say that it is unpleasant to hear Hubert like this. There’s always been a touch of the theatrical to the Minister’s voice. In his youth Ferdinand had found it pretentious and sneering, but these days a well-planned argument from Hubert’s mouth can be as entertaining as an operetta.</p><p>“As I said before, it would hardly serve as a monitor of your safety if I elected to remove it.” Hubert is saying. “And yes, my locket operates somewhat similarly. Two ends of a cord.”</p><p>“Ah. So you are the only one that can hear what goes on during the talks?”</p><p>“Yes. I have been transcribing relevant information for Her Majesty.”</p><p>“How frightfully clever it all is,” Ferdinand muses. “If only we’d had such a thing during the war. Or even at the Academy.”</p><p>There is an awkward pause, enough for Ferdinand to worry that the link between the two of them has broken, before Hubert clears his throat and says “While rather more rudimentary and temperamental than this particular arrangement, Her Majesty and I were able to communicate via magic while at the Academy. Without it some of our more delicate organisation would not have been possible.”</p><p>“Oh,” Ferdinand says. “Well. I suppose that explains a lot, now that I consider it. I always did wonder about one or two of our Flame Emperor’s costume changes. Handy you were there to coordinate, eh?”</p><p>“Ferdinand, are you drunk?”</p><p>“What? Certainly not.” Ferdinand holds his empty wine glass out in front of him, the last drops now a purple stain at the bottom of the bulb. “Merry, perhaps,” he corrects, and then feels a little embarrassed. “I should let you retire. My apologies.”</p><p>“Your apology is needless. In truth, while I had been trying to sleep, it was rather fitful.”</p><p>“Oh? Well, I am not quite ready for sleep, myself. If there is something that troubles you, I’m happy to listen.”</p><p>There’s another pause, and then: “Nothing troubles me.”</p><p>“Ah. Well. Jolly good.”</p><p>“Tell me a little of Dagda, perhaps, if you must keep talking,” Hubert says. His voice is clearer now, the fatigue shaken out. “Where are you, currently? What can you see?”</p><p>“Oh! I am on the balcony of my quarters, an apartment in the civic district.” Ferdinand leans on the balcony railing, looks to each side. “To the east is the rest of Fer Benn, to the west there are the Ruad Mountains, though it’s too dark to see much of either. The stars are quite bright and lovely, though. It’s rather similar to Brigid in temperature, with more moisture in the air. Last night there was a rather abrupt rain shower in the early hours of the morning, so perhaps there might be another one today.”</p><p>“Were you at a party?”</p><p>“Mm?”</p><p>“Since you are ‘merry’, as you put it.”</p><p>“Oh! A well-lubricated meal is all. They eat rather late here, and we took our time over it. I was with Petra and one of the Dagdan senior officials - a Mademoiselle Anfaid. What she cannot speak of Fódlaner she knows in Brigidese, so we made do between the three of us. When I retired to my quarters I thought to have one last glass of wine before bed. And then, to try the locket.”</p><p>“And now here you are.”</p><p>“And here <em>you</em> are. Or are not, I suppose. You know, being able to hear you without seeing you feels awfully intimate.”</p><p>“Intimate?” The word curls in Ferdinand’s ear, low and curious.</p><p>Ferdinand clears his throat. “It, ah, reminds me of those booths the Western Church used to have. Have you ever seen those? A priest would sit on one side and the churchgoer the other, divided by a screen, so that the churchgoer might confess their sins and be absolved. I suppose it allowed for honesty, not having to look the priest in the eye.”</p><p>Rather than the airy noise of before, this laugh is more like Hubert’s usual low chuckle. “Well, well. Are you feeling the need to confess, Ferdinand? I am technically a bishop, after all. Even if it is of no false, fallen god.”</p><p>“I do not think your type of bishop is qualified to take my confession,” Ferdinand says. He’s thinking of the ornate, draping robes and beak-like masks of the Vestra Sorcery Engineers, an uncanny clergy. But a weighted pause follows his words, and Ferdinand finds himself playing the sentence back in his own head with warming cheeks.</p><p>“Oh?” Hubert says, eventually. “Why don’t you try me?”</p><p>On future reflection, it would have been easy to laugh off the suggestion, talk of pride or some misspent anger in their youth and then bid Hubert goodnight. But instead what falls out of Ferdinand’s mouth is: “What would such a bishop consider a sin anyway? Should I tell you of my lustful thoughts and nocturnal defilements of the self or is that dull as dishwater to you?”</p><p>A faint intake of breath, a pause, and then, “Not dull, no.”</p><p>And there it is again, that heat, the rush of blood under Ferdinand’s skin becoming a little too present. “No?” he replies. “You would absolve me of such things, then?”</p><p>“Such things as what, Ferdinand? Touching yourself?” Hubert says. He’s amused, Ferdinand can tell, but there’s something else in his voice, too. “Surely you’re past the point of shame, there. We’re all grown up now. No more stuffing your hand in your mouth in the monastery dormitories so the neighbours won’t hear.”</p><p>Ferdinand gasps out a shocked little half-laugh. “Somehow that sounds so scandalous from you. Your voice has a way about it, you know. Can you sing?”</p><p>“Not if I can get away with it,” Hubert says, which isn’t an answer at all. “But I can say more scandalous things to you if you like.”</p><p>“I. Ah. Don’t know whether to accept or decline,” Ferdinand says. It’s an honest reply. It’s hard to deny that the two of them are flirting, now, which is— well. Not completely out of the blue, perhaps, not formed of thin air. Neither, however, does it have much of a precedent. But with Hubert just a sound in each ear, a personal conspiracy, Ferdinand feels... bolder.</p><p>Briefly he wonders if it is the same for Hubert. What does he look like, right now, laid in bed with the silver locket around his neck? Is he flushing red as Ferdinand has been, or is he without shame, with just that faint smirk of victory he sometimes wears?</p><p>Another moment of quiet, and then: “...I can tell your heart is racing. How curious.”</p><p>Ferdinand starts at this. “What?”</p><p>“The locket,” Hubert says. “The magic built into it, that alerts me if you are in danger. It follows the speed of your heartbeat as one of its cues.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Clearly the latter of Ferdinand’s imaginings, then: the smile of the victor. Ferdinand can practically hear it, now that he knows. “Is this all it takes to get you a little hot and bothered, Ferdinand? I would have thought you more discerning.”</p><p>“Well, perhaps it is a pleasant evening, and I am a little merry, and some mellifluous voice is murmuring things in my ears,” Ferdinand says, more defensively than might be necessary. He feels himself blushing again, warmth blooming from cheek to neck, but he can’t deny his cock has thickened a little. He’s a red-blooded man.</p><p>“So you <em>do</em> want me to say more scandalous things.”</p><p>Ferdinand swallows again. “Do you wish to say them?”</p><p>“Perhaps. If you continue to paint me a picture of what I cannot see. For instance: are you hard, Ferdinand?”</p><p>That’s enough to knock the air back out of Ferdinand already. “No more subtlety, I see.”</p><p>“You wanted to be scandalised. And you wanted to confess. So?”</p><p>A shiver of something travels down Ferdinand’s spine, and he can still hear its tremble in his own voice when he says, “Well, you have the measure of me, then. I am, ah. Somewhat stirred.” The words seem to echo out across the balcony far louder than any others he has spoken tonight. There’s no one else around but the cicadas, but Ferdinand self-consciously steps away from the balcony railing nevertheless.</p><p>“‘Somewhat’? We can do better than that.” A pause. “If you would like.”</p><p>Ferdinand passes his tongue briefly over his bottom lip, tasting stale wine. Hearing the sentence for what it is: a chance to step back from the precipice they’re standing on. And finding himself capable of nothing but allowing himself to fall.</p><p>“Very well,” Ferdinand says. “Let us see what you are capable of.”</p><p>A noise of satisfaction. “What room adjoins your balcony, Ferdinand?”</p><p>“My… sleeping quarters,” Ferdinand says, passing an idle palm over the front of his trousers, feeling himself respond. “Large and airy, with a tiled floor, though there is only one candle lit on the dressing table at present. A net to keep away biting insects over the bed. A small chaise at its foot, with my boots beside it.”</p><p>“Mmm. The chaise, perhaps.”</p><p>“Yes,” Ferdinand says, agreeing almost before he realises it’s a command and feeling a little bolt of shame at his own eagerness. He draws the curtains over the balcony doors after he passes through. With the closing away of the night-time air and the candle’s dim light refocusing his senses, he fancies he can now hear the faint rise and fall of Hubert’s breath.</p><p>“You have me at a disadvantage, you know,” Ferdinand says, once he’s settled on the chaise, thighs parted. “With your knowledge of my heartbeat, and suchlike. How am I to know whether you are feeling a similar way?”</p><p>“It seems I do,” Hubert agrees.</p><p>“Feel a similar way? Or have me at a disadvantage?”</p><p>Hubert makes a noncommittal hum, indicating neither one way nor the other, and isn’t that just typical of the man? “Are you seated?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Are you touching yourself?”</p><p>“Only a little, through my clothes,” Ferdinand says, briefly gripping tighter. “Are you?”</p><p>“This is your confession, not mine, Ferdinand.”</p><p>“Indulge me," Ferdinand presses. </p><p>“Perhaps. If you earn it,” Hubert says, and maybe it’s Ferdinand’s imagination to have heard Hubert’s breath faintly catch after saying that. Then again, alone as he is, Ferdinand is free to imagine whatever he likes. Perhaps despite his caginess Hubert, too, is ghosting his hand over himself like this, ensconced in his own sheets. What would Hubert even wear to sleep? </p><p>Ferdinand’s left hand, taken from where it had been clutching the arm of the chaise, drifts to the open collar of his shirt, brushes against his neck. Makes a meandering journey from one nipple to another, thumbs them to peaks through his shirt. When he briefly catches the locket with the back of his hand through the fabric, drags the chain softly against his neck, another shiver travels down his spine.</p><p>“Talk to me, Ferdinand,” Hubert says. “Tell me what my eyes cannot.”</p><p>“I, ah. I am not sure what else to say. I am seated on the chaise, as you asked. Still mostly… teasing, I suppose. One hand between my legs, the other at my chest. Wondering what you wear to sleep. I simply cannot decide whether you merely retire in full formal wear, should Edelgard need you to spring to action in the middle of the night, or if you are completely déshabillé.”</p><p>Ferdinand can admit here in the dark that he’d hoped for the chuckle that reaches his ears this time, and that it’s what prompts him to unbutton and slide a hand between trousers and smallclothes, squeeze a little more firmly through the thinner fabric. </p><p>“I assume you’re in your usual gilded nonsense,” is all that Hubert speaks further aloud. “Where else do you like to tease, Ferdinand?”</p><p>Ferdinand scoffs. “I dress appropriately for role and occasion, Hubert. I am the Prime Minister of Fódlan, I must—”</p><p>“Don’t get distracted, Your Excellency. Tell me what you’re doing. What you like to do.”</p><p>“I... ah. Enjoy touching my own chest. My stomach. The inward sides of my hips.” Ferdinand thumbs open the first few buttons on his shirt as he speaks, slides a hand inside to reach where he can and make himself shiver. “Usually just my fingers, sometimes a... harsher touch.”</p><p>“Harsher?”</p><p>“You know. Bring a little of the nails into it.”</p><p>There’s definitely some catch in Hubert’s throat at that, which makes Ferdinand’s cock twitch against his hand. “You liked that,” he gloats, and then can’t help but let out a sigh of his own when he pinches a nipple.</p><p>“Time to ask again, I think: are you hard, Ferdinand?" </p><p>Distracted by his own touch, Ferdinand finds himself nodding until he remembers to breathe out a "Yes, Hubert. Very much so, now.”</p><p>“Good. Take yourself out, in hand. If you haven’t already. Do what you need to touch yourself as you like best. Then tell me what you’re doing.”</p><p>Ferdinand doesn’t hesitate to comply, unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way and pulling his trousers and smallclothes down enough to free his cock. It’s relief enough to pull himself out, as hard as he is now. Better still to lick his own palm, heel to fingertips, and wrap it around his length.</p><p>“I… have myself in hand, now,” Ferdinand says. “Quite a— hah— relief after so much teasing.”</p><p>“What are you thinking about as you stroke your cock?”</p><p>Ferdinand gasps a little; it’s the most sordid thing he has ever heard Hubert say out loud. And with it, Hubert’s voice sounds.. rougher. Darker. The whole thing is like a serrated blade drawn with delicate care against Ferdinand’s skin, standing all his hairs on end.</p><p>“I’m thinking about you,” Ferdinand blurts, and then stumbles over the next through the newest bloom of heat in his face: “Wondering if, ah. You are doing the same. If the knowledge of my actions stirs you as— hmm— the telling stirs me.” He plunges onwards, determined not to be outdone: “Tell me, Hubert. Are you stroking your own cock as well?”</p><p>“Don’t hold back, Ferdinand,” Hubert says in that same ragged tone. “Keep talking.”</p><p>“You didn’t answer me.”</p><p>“This is—”</p><p>“My confession, yes. But I do wonder why you— ah!— won’t tell me,” Ferdinand says, dragging fingernails across the base of his stomach with his free hand. It makes his hips jerk upward into his own touch.</p><p>“Keep going,” Hubert demands raggedly. “Scratch. Pinch. Let me hear you.”</p><p>Ferdinand does: pinching one nipple, dragging nails across pectorals, rolling the other nipple between thumb and finger. Licks his other palm again. Dances it over the head of his cock before back to stroking his length. Feels himself twitch, tighten. Sighs and hums, listens to the way Hubert’s own breathing grows a little harsher.</p><p>“I’m doing— hah— everything you say, you know,” Ferdinand gasps. “Does it scare you that I want to know about you, perhaps? Or do you just want me to tell you what I’ve been imagining, instead of the reality?”</p><p>“Go on,” is all Hubert grits out in reply, and Ferdinand scoffs.</p><p>“Fine. Whether you truly are or not, I like to think you have yourself in hand as I do. That you are— mm— on your back across your own sheets, your legs spread, stroking yourself just— just as I am.”</p><p>Hubert makes a choked noise, and Ferdinand presses on: “Perhaps you are timing your own pleasure to mine. Accelerating or delaying according to what you hear. Stifling your own sounds as you hear mine.”</p><p>“Awfully confident of your own allure, aren’t you?” Hubert challenges, but it’s a shoddy façade. Ferdinand tightens his grip a little, lets his eyes fall shut. Concentrates on the winding tension in his own form, the pictures in his head, the sound of Hubert’s breathing in his ears.</p><p>“Admit it, Hubert,” he says, scraping nails against his stomach again. “Admit that— that you are as a-aroused as I am.”</p><p>“Keep talking,” Hubert says. Rough. Dark. “Keep touching yourself.”</p><p>“Admit that you’re t-taking your pleasure simultaneously, that you too will soon spend into your own hand—”</p><p>“Fuck, <em>Ferdinand</em>,” Hubert replies, and this is no smirking observation, no clipped demand, this is a <em>moan</em>, and Ferdinand cannot hold back his own in answer. </p><p>“Am I right?” Ferdinand demands, his hand speeding up as he feels himself tensing. “Hubert, please, tell me—”</p><p>“Ferdinand—”</p><p>“<em>Tell me</em>.”</p><p>“Yes,” Hubert says, like it’s being dragged out of him. “I’m— close. Just as you say. Ferdinand, I wish I could—”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” Ferdinand gasps, and it’s both victory cry and permission; whatever Hubert wants, Ferdinand wants it too, wants it now. “How long have you been—”</p><p>“As long as you have. Maybe a little before.”</p><p>“I <em>knew it,</em>” Ferdinand gasps, but there’s no time to exult in his triumph before he’s coming, milking himself through the orgasm with long strokes, painting his belly. It’s only moments later that he hears Hubert’s own choked moan in his ears, making him shudder one last time.</p><p>—</p><p>The talks, while still fragile and new, are more productive than Ferdinand could have dreamed. He sets sail from Fer Benn back to Nuvelle with more insect bites than he cares to count, his head held high and promises of a more substantial visit to Brigid still on his lips from his farewell to Petra. </p><p>In office of the Imperial Household, on his arrival from Enbarr, he lets the golden chain of the locket pool in Hubert’s gloved palm. “I think we can call this test a resounding success,” he says. “Quite an ingenious invention. You have my thanks for your support during my time in Dagda.”</p><p>“No need to relinquish it so quickly,” Hubert says, and Ferdinand looks up at him, surprised; Hubert merely shrugs, flicks his eyes away to the corner of the room.</p><p>“I had thought it was a temporary loan.”</p><p>“It is. But, ah.” Hubert stays pointedly avoiding Ferdinand’s eyes. “You are a busy man, no? Other trips. Other meetings. Other opportunities to test its functionality.”</p><p>Ferdinand looks away as well, towards the surprisingly verdant potted monstera behind Hubert’s desk. “Oh. Well, I do have a number of other appointments away from Enbarr in the coming months, now that you mention it.”</p><p>“Well then. Keep it for the time being. It may prove itself useful in other circumstances.”</p><p>Ferdinand brushes away a smile from the corners of his mouth with one hand, and accepts the locket’s return with the other.</p><p>“I look forward to those other circumstances, then,” he says, before he can stop himself, and takes the time to watch Hubert’s face flush red before whistling his way out of the room.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you to MachineQueen for the swift beta!</p><p>You can find me on twitter at @hausofthestars but we keep things PG there.</p><p>There are going to be 2 more parts to this concept, FYI - I don't have a schedule for when those will happen, though.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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